The Machinists hope to build a better world for everyone. But even as she manages to hang on a few more decades, rebellion brews again in provinces further from the reach of her throne. The Protector is the ruler of the Tensorate, and will use whatever power is in her grasp to hold onto it, bargaining her future offspring in process. The Slack, the magical energies of the world, is harnessed by monks, and this magic/monks is tightly controlled by the Protector. The Tensorate, takes place in, you guessed it, the Tensorate. I will avoid this and give a general layout of the world the stories take place in, so I can discuss the heart of the books, the characters, later in the review. There is a lot to say about each one, even as they grow shorter as the books progress. It would be easy to fill this review with synopses, digging into each individual novella and laying out the land. Individually, the stories are fun but, taken as a whole the books are a wonderful tapestry exploring the power of identity within an Empire that is threatened by internal rebellion, and the people who choose to rebel. The characters are engaging, the world is a well realized silk-punk, and the individual plots are forceful and emotional. The latter ones rely on worldbuilding from the first two, expanding the world only slightly. They tell different stories and they vary how those stories are told. Each story follows a different character for varying spans of time. The Tensorate, by Neon Yang, is a tricky set of novellas to review.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |